Contact Debate - ethics of the logical categories

[PurpleHouse]

A few strands i would be considering...

* Age of criminal responsibility - society has accepted the person has ability to make own decisions around actions and think through consequences.
* Sex ed - i think i learned the basic biology (how we are made) when i was about 7-9 and first sex ed at school (body changes, emotional side, personal decisions, protection) about 10-11. Sex ed happens than i guess because many will has good capacity to take in the facts and understand them fully, but also because the hormonal changes are going on.
* When does it naturally happen? We joked about this sort of thing age 7-11 and i started "noticing" attraction maybe around 10, but i didn't merge these two things into true "urges" then. Maybe age 13-15 the idea of having a bf/gf becomes more than going out and holding hands and turns into full "awareness" but for many it happens earlier.
* Actual maturity or progress of puberty - hard to pin down as there are no hard "lines" and things progress at very different rates for individuals. An overall average might provide some guidance but still a choice is made for "early" (first pituitary changes or pubarche?) or "late" stage. This idea might guide AoC decision but is too vague on its own as there are so many reasons to pick a particular point.
* I get that having some sort of AoC makes it easier where there is some manipulation of consent - so if it seems likely but can't be proved the AoC can be used.

I think current 16/18 AoC in many western countries is just arbitrary and any other age would be equally arbitrary. But if i were to pick an age out of the air i might naturally have only moved it slightly... but some of the above points make me wonder if a bigger change would be appropriate.

The thing that seems to be ignored by people is that rape, coercion, manipulated consent, trafficking would all still be wrong whether the age is 5 or 25.